Naomi & Alberto do the WABDR on two F800GSs - 2012

[Animo]

Great stuff as always

I still remember your panniers from the time you were in Chiapas, definitely one of a kind and difficult to forget

[betitolara]

We only had a small section left of the WABDR to do this morning. Or at least it looked small on the map. As it turns out it took us longer than we had expected. It was one of those things that when you are already kind of in the mindset of going home the riding takes longer. We kept thinking we were close to the end, but the waypoints just went on forever haha. The ride was nice though, but there wasn't much scenery to take in. We passed the most bikers than any other day though, 4 in total. We had only seen 9 up until that point in the whole trip.

The last leg of the WABDR


Nice views from start to finish

Not to be a complete baby, but my shoulder was still sore so I was happy to be doing low key riding cause I couldn't stand on the pegs without discomfort. The easier the better for me at this stage in the game. In hindsight I could have gone to the hospital to get myself checked out, we have insurance, I just didn't expect to still be in pain this many days later. And by now we were heading home, so I figured I would just go see my doctor once I got home.

We eventually finished the last of the dirt sections of the WABDR and decided to skip the "Bridge of the Gods" to get a jump start on the ride home.

'End of the dirt' triumphant photo

Doing stuff for the sake of doing stuff isn't really our thing. In an effort to avoid the I5, or anything that resembles the I5, we decided to follow the recommended Seattle to Stevenson route for the WABDR and boy we were in for a treat. At first we thought that Garmin was crazy because he was taking us left and right and left and right, but we didn't care because what we were treated to was some of the best street bike riding we've ever encountered. Endless twists, with decent pavement and good visibility. It was smooth riding all the way. We were ripping it up and enjoying ourselves immensely, not to mention that people in WA State are the most polite ever! We felt like Moses as cars quickly pulled over to let us through. This meant that we enjoyed uninterupted twists pretty much the whole way back to Packwood. Can we do that again?

After we filled up with gas in Randle we realized that the we weren't going to make it to the 5:20pm Black Ball ferry from Port Angeles to Victoria. Alberto wanted a do-over on his burger from yesterday so we went back to Cliff Droppers for burgers. I had the same thing, he chose the 911 burger and enjoyed it more than yesterdays selection. We also met a biker (R1) from Nanaimo who had gone down to CA for the MotoGP at Laguna Seca. Nice to see people out and about enjoying the roads.

A quick stop with a view


B&W pic ... why not, eh?


This time my burger met the expectations!

We continued north through Mt. Ranier National Park taking our time. Didn't really see much scenery, I think you get a better glimpse of the mountain when driving in a southerly direction. Either way it was a nice easy ride, and we were starting to put some serious distance down. We eventually popped out into what we called "populated Washington" and started to hate life. Traffic lights, traffic, crazy freeways. It was unpleasant but necessary. We had asked Garmin to take us to Port Angeles the fastest way possible so we knew it was going to come to this. The minutes seems to tick away so slowly when cruising down a 2-lane freeway at 110kph. Oh and the seat on the F8GS isn't the best place to be sitting either. It felt painful and served to reaffirm how much I dislike cities or anything resembling a densely populated area.

Back on a concrete jungle


surrounded by caged 4-wheelers

When we arrived in Port Angeles we went down to the ferry to see what was up. To our surprise there was still another ferry tonight. We were going to miss the last ferry home to Salt Spring but at least we could get a jump on things and get back to Vancouver Island tonight so we bought two tickets and waited for our ferry. The ferry was at 9:30pm, and after we boarded I promptly fell asleep upstairs. I woke up to us arriving into Victoria where we punched in the nearest campground suggested by Garmin and set out. Going through the border was a breeze and the officer was very friendly. He asked us about our bikes and a little about the ride. Good times all around. We ended up staying at a campground I didn't even realize existed, practically at the Swartz Bay Ferry terminal. We set up camp in the dark and crashed for the night.

Port Angeles ferry terminal


Getting off the ferry on the Canadian side!


'don't follow the light!'

[betitolara]

Originally Posted by Animo

Great stuff as always

I still remember your panniers from the time you were in Chiapas, definitely one of a kind and difficult to forget

Hey! hola! haha my panniers are unique I know
Did we get to talk / meet in Chiapas?

Saludos mi hermano, me alegra que nos encontremos por aquí.
Salud!
Alberto.

PS: sorry guys for not updating this RR for a few days. We were away for a few days and joined this years BC Big Adventure Trail Ride (which was AWESOME!) I posted some photos HERE (and on the following pages as well)

[soph9]

Have you guys ridden up to Mt. Baker Washington yet? Congrats on finishing the WABDR! Part of it is closed now due to fires

[uzbek]

found you again. great report, as usual!

[svensmanager]

Originally Posted by soph9

Have you guys ridden up to Mt. Baker Washington yet? Congrats on finishing the WABDR! Part of it is closed now due to fires

Only been up there to go skiing. No biking around. Honestly this has been the first summer we've ridden the BMWs "locally"

[soph9]

Originally Posted by svensmanager

Only been up there to go skiing. No biking around. Honestly this has been the first summer we've ridden the BMWs "locally"

Next time you are out this way...I truly think on a nice day you both would be very happy with the pavement hairpin turns on your bikes all the way up...

[betitolara]

Originally Posted by uzbek

found you again. great report, as usual!

[betitolara]

We woke up at 5:30am and packed everything up in a jiffy. We drove 5min down the road to the ferry terminal. After only 5 hrs of sleep I was hurting pretty good. I felt a bit like a zombie waiting in the ferry line. After a quick 35min sailing we touched down on Salt Spring Island, home sweet home. Being first off the ferry is great and we were cruising pretty good into town, well until we got behind a tourist from Arizona who was going very slow. Either way it was nice to be home and have such great weather greating us.

We had an amazing time on this trip. Washington is a great place to go, people are exceptionally friendly and polite (like pulling over to let bikes pass) and in the evenings when we were camping the bugs were rarely an issue. It was a perfect trip with some great riding. We had lots of fun. The people who have put together the BRD routes have done an excellent job. I was happy that we had both the paper map and the gps points, either way everything is really nicely packaged.

It was dark last night so we ended up taking up two sites unaware of it


Early rise to catch the first ferry home


A great sunrise to end this amazing ride


Thank you for following us along

-- THE END --

[soph9]

Great RR! Thanks!


If you see typos it's my phones fault!

[Bob]

No, thank you!

[Blue Icebreaker]

Great ride report! The photos look *amazing*. The two F800s are so well positioned one next to the other on almost every photo, it almost looks like a promotional book for the beast! Wow :) I have an orange one myself and just did my first enduro ride a couple of weekends ago. And first enduro fall - best school ever

Thanks once again and wishing you all the best!

[Speeder54]

Thanks for another great report. I really appreciate you taking the time to snap photos and write up your days travels. Looking forward to the next one.

[donnh]

Wow, glad I found your ride reports, very nice. We would have met at the BC Adventure Ride but my F800 was suffering a similar looking bent front rim and I was waiting for my Woody's wheel replacement. I live in WA so it was fun to see pictures of rides we have done many times. My wife and I are leaving in January to do your same South America trip except in reverse. I love the photography, something I haven't learned if you ever looked at our ride reports. PM me if you are ever near Seattle.

[betitolara]

Originally Posted by soph9

Great RR! Thanks!

Originally Posted by Bob

No, thank you!

gracias para los dos then

Originally Posted by Blue Icebreaker

Great ride report! The photos look *amazing*. The two F800s are so well positioned one next to the other on almost every photo, it almost looks like a promotional book for the beast! Wow :) I have an orange one myself and just did my first enduro ride a couple of weekends ago. And first enduro fall - best school ever

Thanks once again and wishing you all the best!

Congrats on doing your first enduro ride on your F8GS! make sure you have crash-bars and all the protection req to protect you and your bike
cheers